Newly unemployed teacher Mary Malone never suspected she would become a Miss Marple wannabe when she and her recently widowed aunt decide to sublet her private investigator brother's apartment in the Foley complex near downtown Minneapolis. After having listened to a message intended for the PI's ears only, Mary is determined to solve what sounds like an easy case for Reed Griffin, owner of the Bar X Ranch, and soon finds herself not only facing down her demons from childhood—fear of horses—but also being surrounded by two deaths and three very deceiving men.